Rumble in Charlottesville.

“We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST.”

President Donald Trump.

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Charlottesville, wow. I mean…wow.

On one side of the battlefield, a collected mishmash of hateful, buggy-eyed racists in riot gear, militia-types, America Firsters, Conservatives, and, I imagine, a fair amount of people who were simply trying to preserve what they consider to be a valid chapter of Southern history. On the other side, an equal mishmash of hateful, buggy-eyed Leftist fanatics, hopped-up hipsters, tenured idiots, Social Justice Warriors, the odd tranny, and, again, probably a fair amount of genuine activists wishing to put forth a message of love and tolerance in the face of ugly-ass racism. Good eggs and bad, lining up against each other on a hot August day in the normally-bucolic streets of a Virginia college town. The only other folks involved were the cops, themselves attacked for attempting to maintain order in this weird chaos, and all the useless morons standing around with their phones and tablets in the air.

As such, I do not believe for a nanosecond that one side showed-up to kill people and the other to peacefully hold rainbow signs and sing John Lennon songs. Both guerilla armies had hate in their hearts, and both sides wanted the fight. This was a rumble, folks. This was an S. E. Hinton novel. This was the Greasers and the Socials, going to war with sticks, rocks, and pepper spray. No one was innocent, and everyone got a piece of the action, or a least a really cool Facebook post after the blood dried. As a result, three people are dead and many more critically injured. Yup. That was some damned crazy and tragic bullsh-t that went down in Charlottesville yesterday morning. Freaking senseless as the day is long.

Of course, it was all Donald Trump’s fault, as everyone from the Mayor of Charlottesville to Lady Gaga have claimed since the president admonished “many sides” for their bigotry and hatred. They argue–as they have since The Trumpster first started kicking Hillary’s big butt in the electoral map last November–that because some racists supported him, and since he hasn’t denounced them ENOUGH, certainly he must be a racist himself. Moreover, if you voted for Trump, you must also be a hate-filled bigot. I, myself, have been routinely called a racist, anti-immigrant homophobe for my Trump vote, despite the fact that my entire extended family is comprised of west side Brownskins, and some of my best, most trusted friends in the world are well-dressed gay men. Not to mention if anyone were to suggest that Barack Obama supported Islamic Terrorism or cop-killers because he didn’t condemn them ‘enough,’ the Liberal Puke Outrage would be louder and more shrill than Katy Perry freaking-out on her therapist’s couch after nine Red Bulls.

While no one is trying to justify the violence of the racist assholes in the riot gear or the murderous son of a bitch who plowed a Dodge Challenger into a crowded street, taking the life of Heather Heyer, it still does not afford the anti-Trump folks a convenient safe space into which they can crawl and pretend that their side is any less hate-filled or phobic. The daily barrage of Trump assassination jokes and dangled severed heads is matched only by the unrelenting anti-“white,” anti-Christian, anti-male, anti-free speech, anti-law enforcement, and decidedly anti-American rhetoric that is at the heart of the current Progressive agenda. In other words, you don’t get to call your own hatred “love” simply because you have a freaking rainbow on your tee shirt.

For example, last night I was taken to task on Facepuke by a rabble of elitist nimrods for daring to suggest that Martin Luther King, Jr., was less concerned about racists than he was with a “better idea,” that better idea being the notion that someday, perhaps, we Americans will evolve to a place where we truly judge folks not “by the color of their skin,” or perhaps their religion, orientation, or politics, “but by the content of their character.” It is sad and disturbing when you realize just how many people, with either multiple sheepskins on their walls or an American flag firmly planted in the front yard, really couldn’t give a single fart in Hell about King’s idea of real world equality, and, in fact, are about the business of fast-walking King’s dream backwards into the dust bin of history for little more than an ego stroke or a humble-boasting social media post. Jumping Jesus. At this rate, we’ll be cave-painting before the next Star Wars movie comes out.

In any event, I believe the first step in personal and social evolution is for each of us to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and to be painfully honest about who we are in this world, and who we hate, and why. The honesty-thing is the pesky part, because it may require you to admit to some pretty dark and primitive things, all of which were on full display–on many sides–in Charlottesville yesterday.

Then again, if that seems too difficult, you can always just take a selfie while the world burns around you.